Portland Says Good Bye to Free Disabled Parking

This is really strange — I don’t know if they are just trying to be PC or really don’t understand the problem but in this article they talk at length about how they are going to begin charging folks who park in disabled spaces. Fair Enough.

But not once in the article or seemingly in the discussions, is the problem of placard abuse mentioned. If you have a ‘wheel chair’ disabled placard, it will still be free, but all the rest will have to pay. The article did acknowledge that on a given day, over 1000 spaces in downtown Portland were occupied with disabled permits, but only 21 were wheel chair permits.

The article goes on and on about the amount of revenue that will be raised. but says nothing about giving disabled access that is denied due to placard abuse. There are over 90,000 handicapped placards issued in the Portland area, 2000 of which are for those requiring wheel chairs. I wonder how that number will change when the new law goes into affect.

The only reasonable way to stop placard abuse is to charge for parking. Disabled people tell me they don’t want free parking, they want and need access. Seems reasonable to me.

Let’s remember to follow up in Portland in a year or so and find out how many disabled placards are on file.